Covert Fae

by C. N. Crawford

  Poison hemlock, I told myself. And then, but just one taste won’t kill me.

  I stood on my tiptoes, my body sliding against his as I made myself as tall as possible. Then I reached out and cupped my hand around the back of his neck. His eyes remained completely transfixed on mine, as if he were trying to read a book in a language he couldn’t quite understand.

  At the feel of his skin beneath my hand, a fresh wave of euphoria rushed through my body. His veins beat beneath my skin in an entrancing rhythm. Silver flared in his stormy eyes.

  Vulture, I tried to tell myself. Poison hemlock. But I could no longer quite remember what the words meant, or why they mattered. Or, in fact, why words mattered at all.

  I pulled him down to my level and kissed his neck, first lightly, then hungrily, my tongue moving over the pulsing vein in his neck. I needed to taste him, to feel the warmth of his naked body against mine, to feel his mouth all over me.

  Poison hemlock! Somewhere in the darkest recesses of my mind, the words rang like a death knell.

  I pulled my mouth away from his throat, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to take my hands off him.

  His eyes burned, and his midnight wings still curled around me. Dark magic whirled around us, shielding us from the sentinels’ view.

  “You shouldn’t have stopped.” The sensual timbre of his voice was more of a command than the words themselves.

  From my hips, he trailed his fingertips up my ribs to the strap of my gown. Despite myself, despite what I knew about him, I ached for him to pull it off me. As if hearing my thoughts, he slipped his fingertips under the silk strap. Slowly, he pulled it down, and the cool forest air kissed my bare skin, peaking my breasts. Yes. This is what I want on Eimmal.

  My neck arched in a silent invitation. When I closed my eyes, his mouth warmed my neck. His tongue flicked over my skin, then a hint of teeth brushed against the most vulnerable part of my body until I practically moaned.

  As he slowly moved his mouth lower over my skin, wild lust pooled between my legs. More.

  One of his hands moved down, pulling up the hem of my dress, fingertips brushing against my thighs. They skimmed over my knife holster, but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, the feel of the knife elicited a low growl from him. As his mouth moved over my breast, his other hand was traveling up my leg, fingers moving lazily—so painfully slowly. Torturing me, he brushed his fingertips up the inside of my thigh, lifting my dress higher.

  I’d gone without underwear today and should be stopping him. Instead, I practically moaned as the cool, February breeze whispered over the bare skin under my dress.

  He was taking his time with me, and these slow movements of his were a strange sort of torture. I needed more from him, needed him to kiss me hard.

  I gripped him by the collar of his shirt, pulling his mouth up to mine. I pressed my lips against him, kissing him with wild abandon, my tongue brushing against his. He’d lifted my dress now, his hand cupping under my thigh, and I hooked a leg around him, pulling him closer to me.

  As he claimed my mouth, I lost all sense of time and place, my body beaming with pure ecstasy.

  I am blood and moss, earth and claws, a creature who runs naked through the forest, berry juices running down my chin…

  A jolt went through my body as I felt myself changing… fading.

  Oh hell.

  I pushed Adonis away, and his eyes went wide with shock. A lock of my hair blew in front of my face in the chilly breeze.

  With horror, I realized it had faded to a pale gold. My eyes would be silver, my canines sharpened, ears pointed.

  No.

  I’d dropped my glamour. All of it.

  “Ruby.” His voice was a deep rasp.

  Horror clawed at me. I’d just blown my own cover—with the one angel who hated feral fae.

  Frantically, I pulled up the hem of my gown to break into a sprint. With the glamour dropped, I could move at full speed, and my legs carried me fast out the door.

  I nearly froze in the hallway—there, at the other end of the corridor, stood Johnny, gaping at me, the feral fae running around the angels’ castle.

  That made two angels I needed to take care of.

  Run, Ruby. Run for your weapons.

  At the full speed of an unglamoured fae, I raced into the stairwell, pounding down the stairs. I moved like the wind, a blur of speed, until I was out in the forest air again.

  My feet hammered the damp soil. My pale hair whipped around my head as I ran, at one with the spring air.

  Get to the weapons.

  I wasn’t holding back anymore. I was going to fight with the full force of my power, and I knew exactly where I needed to go. I was going to draw angel blood today.

  I reached the buried weapons within moments and dropped to my knees. My body blazing with adrenaline, I clawed in the dirt, digging up the soil until I reached my buried bow and arrows.

  As I slung the quiver over my back, the shadow of wings swooped over me.

  I looked up at the angel coming in for a landing nearby—gray wings and a scrawny physique. Johnny had come for me.

  I nocked one of my poison-tipped arrows, getting ready to aim.

  But as I did, Johnny flung out his arms, and utter darkness fell over the forest.

  Chapter 33

  My hands trembled, still gripping my bow and arrow. My heart pounded so loudly I was certain Johnny could hear it, could track me by the sound.

  “Oh, Ruby!” he called out into the void.

  Panic whirled in my mind like wild spirits, and I rose on trembling legs.

  Darkness, shadows all around me. Utter and complete blindness.

  Terror pulled me under. I began running blindly, my hands extended to feel for trees. When I slammed into a tree trunk, Johnny’s laughter rang across the forest, sending icy shivers through my blood.

  He was going to toy with me until I died.

  I stopped running, trying to slow my breathing until I could come up with a plan. Hard to think when blood was roaring in my ears, drowning out my thoughts, when the darkness was all around me…

  But a fae didn’t need vision the way humans did. I breathed in deeply, trying to tune in to my sense of smell. Floating on the wind were the scents of the trees, the groves—yews, elders, hawthorns—and a single rowan.

  If I could tap in to that power, the power of the Old Gods, maybe I could ignite a light in the shadows, enough to see where Johnny was, enough to look out for Adonis.

  A sharp, shrill noise pierced the air—the cry of a magpie.

  I ran, following the scent of the rowan, the sharp cries of the magpie. My shoulder slammed into a tree trunk, and I winced with pain. I tried running with my arms out in front.

  “Ruby, darling!” Johnny shouted. “Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look? I could end this now, only I don’t want to.”

  Tree branches and blackthorn clawed at my skin, but I tuned in only to the sound of the magpie shrieking overhead. The Old Gods were calling to me, leading me. I had to believe it, because I had nothing else left.

  My feet sank into the damp earth as I ran.

  Just as the sound of the magpie grew more distant, I caught a glimpse of a faint silver glow.

  The rowan branch.

  Yasmin’s words rang in my mind. In order to be our beacon, you’ll have to descend into the shadows.

  With my pulse pounding hard, I ran for the tree. Wild relief flooded me as I reached the rowan trunk, and I looped the bow over my shoulder to free my hands.

  “Ruby!” Johnny’s voice was overhead now, circling me. “Trying to sow divisions with me and Kratos, were you? Trying to make him think I had a bit of a drinking problem?”

  Even as he was shouting at me, his words were slurred.

  I pushed out his taunts, focusing on grasping for the knots and branches to hoist myself up the tree.

  Laughter echoed around me. “Little beast. Do you really think climbing a tree will keep you safe? I’m not on
e of Kratos’s hounds.”

  I was pretty sure Johnny could kill me with a flick of his wrist if he wanted to. The only thing keeping me alive right now was the fact that he was enjoying watching me scramble and stumble blindly.

  Could he really not see the glowing silver branch?

  I played up my helplessness, yelping and pretending to grasp wildly for branches, pretending to miss.

  “Awww, dear Ruby.” His voice boomed. “I’m tempted to watch you starve out on that tree branch, feel the talons of famine sinking into your pretty little body. Your sister is supposed to return tonight, isn’t she? And how shall I kill her? Slowly, I think, and with as much pain and indignity as possible. Bit like you, clinging to this tree branch.”

  Oh, you’re going down, Johnny. I reached the silver branch, then began shuffling along the bough, my blood pounding through my veins.

  “Is it weird that I’m getting turned on watching you straddle that branch?” Johnny boomed.

  With my pulse racing, I edged along until I reached the glowing silver. Johnny hadn’t mentioned it, hadn’t said a damned thing about it. At this point, I could only imagine that he couldn’t see it at all.

  I used my thigh muscles to clutch tightly to the branch, because I’d need both my hands for what was about to happen.

  Before I reached for the knife strapped to my thigh, I took mental stock of my weapons. In my right hand, I held the bow. From the quiver, I pulled out an arrow, shoving that into my right hand as well, taking care to make my movements look as clumsy as possible, minimizing the appearance of a real threat.

  “What’s the plan, Ruby? Shoot me blindly?”

  With my left hand, I reached for the knife at my thigh. I’d only have one shot.

  Moving at the speed of a fae, I yanked the knife from its holster and jammed it into the tree branch.

  I am a child of the forest, of the Old Gods, and I command the light.

  As I did, intense, ancient power blazed through me, and a burst of pearly light bloomed around me, illuminating Johnny flying just above me.

  I was ready with my arrow.

  I had just enough time to catch the look of utter surprise on Johnny’s face before I loosed the arrow, right for his heart.

  It struck its mark in the center of his chest, and his jaw dropped, wings drooping. Horror contorted his features, and a thin stream of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.

  The power of the ancient gods still flowed through my body, and I felt their vengeance, their wrath.

  The Old Gods screamed through my veins as I watched Johnny clutch his chest.

  A sly smile curled my lips. “Is it weird that I enjoy watching you suffer?”

  Johnny fell to the earth, gray wings trailing behind him. I pulled my knife from the silver bough, still feeling the gods’ power thrumming wildly through my bones. The sound of wind and rivers roared in my ears, electrifying my body.

  As pure, silvery light continued to blaze around me, the forest soil welcomed my bare feet with a lover’s embrace.

  My gaze flicked to Johnny, who writhed on the mossy earth, eyes bulging.

  I nocked another arrow, my pale hair blowing around my face. “You were never supposed to be here, Johnny. The Old Gods want you to leave.”

  With the music of the forest pounding in my ears, I shot him again and again, until arrows protruded from his body like St. Sebastian.

  I stood over him, a primal power skimming the length of my body. He began to convulse, a red foam pooling at his lips. I had a vague sense that night was falling around us, but that silvery light still bloomed in the air.

  Ruby the beast had taken down an angel—with the help of the Old Gods.

  When he stopped twitching, and his pupils paled to a milky white, I began digging, claws in the dirt, flinging soil with abandon.

  The sounds of the forest grew louder around me, the colors brighter, until I was no longer sure I could separate myself from the gods—wasn’t sure where I ended and they began.

  As I buried Johnny deep in the forest’s soil, my mind whirled with burning lights, the cries of the magpies. The magic inside me was sparking too hot, so intense that I felt at risk of burning out, of turning into a husk of a creature.

  By the time I finished covering his pale, scrawny body with the last handful of dirt, my body was trembling, desperate for a reprieve from the gods’ magic. I fell onto the mossy soil above him, breathing in the rich scent of the earth.

  Chapter 34

  I woke to the scent of myrrh, to the feel of shadows whispering over my skin, to powerful arms carrying me over the earth.

  I opened my eyes, staring in horror at Adonis, his features silvered in the moonlight.

  My body tensed. Where are my weapons?

  “Relax,” he said softly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  My head was pressed against his muscled chest, and I could hear his heart beating against my ear. “You’re reassuring me? I just took down an angel. You should be scared of me.” Pretty tough talk from someone who couldn’t reach her weapons right now.

  I knew my glamour had dropped completely, but I didn’t feel completely feral anymore. Some of the wildness had faded.

  “I was watching,” said Adonis.

  “Why didn’t you stop it?”

  “I didn’t want to. I’ve been working against Johnny, against Kratos.”

  “You have?”

  “Why do you think I wanted Kratos to see you in my room? You’ve been utterly distracting him from his mission, and his jealousy threw him completely off course.”

  I blinked, my thoughts hazy. Now that my secrets were all out in the open, I could ask what I really wanted to know. “What happened to my friends? The humans you saved?”

  “They’re safe. I set them up in a cottage outside of London.”

  I tried to make sense of what he was saying. “Why would you do that?”

  “You risked your life for them. I thought their lives must be worth preserving for some reason.”

  My eyes were drifting closed as I leaned against his chest, but I still had so many questions. “I don’t understand. Why are you working against the other angels?”

  “To end the Great Nightmare. I’ve been searching for someone like you.”

  A million questions raced through my mind. “What? Why? What do you mean someone like me?”

  As the words tumbled out of my mouth, I winced at the pain in my shoulder.

  “Shhhh.” His magic kissed my skin, soothing some of the pain away like a delicious salve. “Before we go back into the castle, you need to glamour yourself as a succubus again. Kratos can’t know that you’re a… fae.”

  He said the word with such contempt that I still had no doubt he hated my kind. “Why were you searching for a fae if you hate our kind?”

  He shook his head, his pale eyes gleaming in the night. “I wasn’t searching for a fae. I was searching for the Bringer of Light.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “It means you can help lift the shadow of darkness from the world.” He met my gaze, his stormy eyes blazing. “You need to glamour yourself now, Ruby.”

  “Fine.” With the last vestiges of my magic, I summoned my succubus glamour.

  And then, with the sound of Adonis’s heart and the feel of his body lulling me, my eyes began drifting closed once more. Before I fell asleep, my last thoughts were of Hazel.

  I woke to ruddy sunlight filtering into the room and the smell of cedar. I felt warm and protected in here, even if the ghosts of the Old Gods still whispered in my mind.

  I blinked in the light, and when my eyes adjusted, I saw Kratos, sitting in a chair like a king on a throne. Warm firelight wavered over his tan skin and sparked in his amber eyes.

  Coppery light beamed from his body. “The succubus awakens. Nearly in time for dinner.”

  I blinked at him. I’d slept for a whole day, but at least I felt sane again. “Is Hazel here?”

  “First th
ings first. I leave the castle for a day, and all hell breaks loose. What happened to Johnny?”

  I glanced at the door to my room, still smashed to pieces. “He must have been drunk yesterday. In a rage about something. Did you two have a fight?” I asked, all innocence.

  “Something like that.”

  “He said I was trying to poison your mind against him. He broke down my door, chased me through the woods. And then… he just disappeared.”

  Kratos nodded slowly. “That’s exactly what Adonis said.”

  “Well, it’s the truth.” I sat up in bed, my head still swimming. “Where is Hazel?”

  He stood. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

  As soon as he crossed out of the room, a tall, lithe succubus entered, dressed from head to toe in black leather.

  Hazel?

  My jaw dropped at the sight of her—the porcelain skin, black curly hair, eyes dark as the night sky. In an instant, I was out of the bed, folding my arms around her, breathing in her familiar smell. Tears pricked my eyes.

  “Easy, sister. I’m not used to all this carrying on.” Still, her features were beaming, a grin lighting up her face.

  I gaped at her, tears streaming down my face. “Are you okay? What happened to you? I haven’t seen you since… since…” Since the day I watched dragons slaughter Marcus and rip you from the Earth.

  She crossed to the edge of my bed, kicking off her shoes, and sat cross-legged on the blanket. In her leather clothes and with her height, she didn’t look fourteen anymore.

  Of course, she wasn’t fourteen anymore. She was sixteen, I had to remind myself.

  “I was living with a horde of dragons in a Scottish castle.” She bit her lip. “They were terrifying at first, but they kind of grew on me. They like having women and girls around, but they didn’t touch us or anything. They just like hoarding things. What have you been doing? I thought you were in New York this whole time. How did you get here?”

  “We’ll get to that.” I blinked. “So you lived with a whole bunch of other women and dragons in a castle?”